Mental Yuck

There have been a lot of thoughts and almost posts formulating in my head lately. Some of them seemed like they would be really cool deep thought kind of posts but alas instead I keep resorting back to the same old traditional format where I drone on about nothing of any real significance.  But hey, it’s my blog I can do whatever I want, right?

So here’s the thing, there has always been and always will be a direct correlation between weight loss and effort vs. mental wellness.  One would traditionally think that the more mentally sound you are the better everything would fall into place. And while this is pretty true on the motivation front and the desire, I have to say that for me nothing feeds my soul or fuels my fire more than being a little pissed off about things.  Is that fair? Probably not but it’s the truth.  When there is discontent in my life is probably when I need the gym as my therapy more than ever.  The gym/running;  the physical exertion of my emotional torment.  This tends to be the only time I have ever come close to understanding what it must be like for a cutter.  That someone in the pain is the release you need.  I wouldn’t cut myself ever but I do push myself physically to get that same release.

When everything around you is in chaos and you feel like you are spinning out of control, I have this one area of my life that I can and will excel at. That I can take full ownership of my actions for. That I can succeed and feel the power and strength and self-worth that might be lacking in other areas of my life.  It’s all sick and twisted. No one ever promised that this weight loss game was an easy thing.   No one ever said that it was perfect or without totally fucked up parts.  The best I have learned in my 11 plus years of going up and down with weight is that you can’t fix all your problems. It’s impossible.  But learning to channel things in a productive manner is as good as you can hope for.

No one ever promised you a stress free easy life.  I mean, if you have it great, lucky lucky you.  One assumes the celebrities or famous good looking people have it easier but that is also a fallacy.  They have a world of pressures that us mere mortals would never understand.  Even having buckets of money doesn’t make you immune from life occurring around you.  There are things that money has zero effect on.  Quality of relationships.  Traffic.  Unexpected items breaking.  (although money makes it less of a stress because you can repair it easily) Money cannot buy you friendships, love, self-worth, peace of mind,  genuine connections. All the stuff that ultimately makes life worth living.  It certainly aids in its ability to generate moments that could bring happiness.  But unto itself money is not the be all end all.

I guess where I’m going with all of this is that life constantly throws the unexpected at us and it is ultimately up to us to figure out how we choose to deal with it.  I am incredibly fortunate that in the past 2 years of my life I have learned how to actually channel the unexpected stress of life into positives for me.  Not the stress as a positive but my reaction to it. Instead of letting it tear me down I use it as the fuel in my fire to keep me going. To ignite my passions.  To push my dreams into reality. 

Yesterday was one big stress cluster fuck. Just a big old Fuck You Emily kind of day. We all have them.  I decided to channel said energy into one big kick ass workout.  I needed a solid run. Although running on a treadmill is never as solid or easy as a beautiful outside run but nonetheless it gets the job done.  I didn’t run at all on Tuesday night as I probably should have.  Therefore last night I had to force myself to complete 4.5 miles.  Because heaven forbid I go even slightly off plan on my marathon training plan. Yes I am way to OCD that is the truth.  I also took a strength training class with Miss Amanda.  It was good. I needed to lift something heavy.

What resulted was an almost 2 hour workout and 886 calories burned and an amazing post workout high! The kind of high that makes you feel like everything else that is going crazy is going to be okay.  That you can handle all the unexpected of life because you have this. This calming sense of peace.

For what it’s worth the past week or two I feel like I have really started to dial in the exercise and eating and am starting to feel really good physically and notice a difference in my appearance. I feel smaller. And tighter and all of this makes me happier.  And today I finally saw some results of my efforts on the scale.  Instead of being in the 150’s, today shockingly I was 147.3. This was a fabulous surprise.  Just being back in the 140’s again feels amazing. 

Actually in all fairness when I worked so hard last fall, in October to lose 15 pounds the lowest I got was   144.4, and I felt AMAZING about myself. I felt like I looked wonderful. So clearly I am not that far off from that. I am starting to feel it to. I definitely like the way I look better at around this size.  I’ve always known that actually. I am happier and feel good in the mid 140’s but realistically it takes a lot of work on my part to stay there. I naturally maintain at like 155.  I prefer 145.  We find our balance somewhere in there.

I guess my point is that all of the crazy is good for my diet.  Not good for my head. You can’t win them all. Tonight I will go to the gym and meet my mom for a workout. I have to run of course.  Sometimes I don’t want to run and it’s a total chore, but alas the whole plan. I’m supposed to do 4.5 miles but I am totally giving myself permission to amend it to 3 miles tonight only.  Mainly because that’s a whole whopping 1.5 miles less and believe me on Saturday I’m running 13.1 miles which is more than the plan calls for.

Which leads me to the reality that I am not working tomorrow, I am getting in the car and driving to Seattle tomorrow morning. It’s packet pick up for me and then a hotel room tomorrow night and bright and early in downtown Seattle for the run on Saturday morning. Still actually haven’t gotten tired of doing this whole thing yet.  The whole organized running thing.  Still just love it.  It’s just my happy time.

Anyway, busy day at work mostly and in 2 hours we have a work company meeting which happens like once every couple years honestly so this should be interesting.